Democrats for Romney?

1/12/12 12:56 PM EST

The Democratic primary in New Hampshire Tuesday didn’t matter, but…

There were a few interesting little statistical nuggets that should give Team Obama a bit of mild agita. First (and last) is that the president managed to win only 82 percent of the 59,000 votes cast – the lowest recent primary showings of a presidential incumbent since George W. Bush in ’04.

Then there’s this: 1,808 Democratic primary voters actually wrote in Mitt Romney's name — about two percent of the Democratic total.

Ron Paul got 2,273 Democratic write-ins but, as one GOP operative pointed out, those might have been anti-war or anti-Wall Street protest votes. The Romney Democrats likely switched for other reasons: The economy, the deficit, frustration with big government, etc.

A Dem official pushed back – and said the crossover tally is low to average. In 1996, for instance, Pat Buchanan received 3,347 votes in the Democratic primary, and Lamar Alexander, Steve Forbes, and Bob Dole were all over 1,250.

“If anything,” the Democrat says, “Romney should be concerned he didn't receive more write-ins on the Democratic ballot."

There are caveats, of course. Republicans were actively recruiting Democrats for weeks up to the primary and pushing hard to whip up a Democrats-for-Mitt storyline.

By contrast, 282 Republicans wrote in Obama on the Republican ballot, not a great sign for a candidate who drew a lot of Granite State GOP votes from John McCain in 2008.

New Hampshire isn’t the only state where this might play out. Take Virginia, where it’s reasonable to expect that some Democratic voters will jump to the GOP presidential candidate, while backing Democrat Tim Kaine over George Allen in the gubernatorial.

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